Wednesday, January 11, 2012

First Slab of 2012

I caught this 20" rainbow trout out of Jefferson Lake in Forest Park, St. Louis. Every winter, the Missouri department of conservation stocks rainbow trout as part of the urban winter stocking program.

The fishing has been exceptionally good here lately, with a warm front that moved in late last week. The day after I landed this lunker I caught 7 more bows all over 12". This was caught with a #12 jig, with a bead head and black marabou body, very easy to tie: a simple but proven fish catcher for trout, crappie and bluegill. For stillwater trout I fish this fly with no indicator, just after sunset. I start out with slow 4-6" strips followed by a 1-2 second pause. If that doesn't produce I increase the pause all the way up to 15 seconds. Sometimes I will just cast it out and deadstick for a whole minute before I start working it back.

As one who originally spent a great deal of time fishing for largemouth bass, I have found that one of the most critical (and difficult) modifications I had to make for trout was to slow down the presentation.